


Blue/Gray, Afterwords

by digitalcatnip



Series: Blue/Gray [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Codependency, First chapter is in first person POV, Guns, Hunting, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reincarnation, Second chapter in second person, Suicidal Thoughts, Synesthesia, They aren't quite as pretentious as the original though I promise, Third chapter in third person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 07:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23467789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalcatnip/pseuds/digitalcatnip
Summary: Short drabbles written of the three characters' lives post-return from the pine forest.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s)
Series: Blue/Gray [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688257
Kudos: 1





	1. i found you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world changes. Wars are fought and won, towers rise and fall, cities are built and burned, and yet I stay the same.  
> And every time, somehow, I find you. And every time your face is different, but your eyes are always just as blue.
> 
> I guess.
> 
> \---
> 
> A little snippet of Gray's future with Blue over lifetimes, not entirely canon.

I finally found you.

Walking through the snow and wind in a city I’ve never been to, the compass finally stood still there on the sidewalk, looking up into your eyes, and I couldn’t see the colour but I know they were the colour of the ocean, and twice as deep.

There were lines starting to form on your face, and your hair was streaked in silver, but it was you.

It was you.

At long, long last.

And your hands are still warm as they intertwine with mine, and we walk along the beach, the sand under our feet, and we say nothing but somehow we talk about everything. You live in a house the colour of your eyes, there on the beach of the country I’ve never been to, and there’s an orchid on your kitchen table and it’s alive (and it’s been alive, you said, since you woke up,) and we lay in your bed and we talk and say nothing and listen to the sounds of the ocean until ours eyes no longer stay open

You traveled the world, stepping on the sands of every beach you can reach, and you swim with the creatures within the water, running your hands along their smooth, graceful fins, and they sing to you in their own special language, that only you hear. And you never forgot the forest, and you never forgot about me.

And I spent my time caring for creatures for whom death watched closely, the injured, the ill, the too young to fend for their own, wrapping them in cloth and pressing bottles into toothless, screaming mouths. For some of them, the black dog comes, no matter what I do. But for most, I beat it back with a stick, and people sign their names on pieces of paper, promising that the black dog will never come until it is truly time.

And that black dog robbed me of everything. So I rob it of the gifts that the god of life wishes to give it.

You ask me if I want to go with you to the next piece of ocean you wish to visit, and we step onto the plane together, and rocket screaming into the sky, my nails digging into your hand, and you smile at me and squeeze.

And we leave our footsteps on the sands of the world together, year after year, and the silver slowly takes over your hair, and there are more and more lines behind your eyes, and when I look in the mirror I look exactly the same.

“Some people just age differently,” you say, eyes like mine stay young forever.

But as you grow brittle, I stay the same. Always the same.

There are some stories of immortals, those who have made deals with death to stay alive for all of eternity in return for a service. And I’ve tried my entire life to avoid that damn black dog, but I can feel it’s presence here, sitting at the foot of your bed, watching the machines that tell me you’re still alive, and it’s waiting, and I can do nothing.

And it takes you away again.

  
  
  


I find you again, on the concrete of a cul-de-sac, dark blood seeping from the scrapes in your knees, tears streaming from your face. And I reach out to help you up, your hand tiny in my own. And you smile at me, and your face is not the same I used to know, but your eyes are just as blue, even if I can’t see it anymore.

And I don’t see you again until you are older, and your hair falls to your shoulders, and you sit across from me and sip your tea and smile at me with that same smile from the forest. And this time, you can’t remember any of it. But it doesn’t matter.

You love the water just as much, and it soaks into your hair and you teach yourself to hold your breath as long and you dive, deep, deep, to find the whales, and you’ve never looked so alive as you did when you looked into its eyes, and you forgot that you needed to breathe. Just for a moment as your god sang to you before disappearing into the depths.

And this time you stay in one place, but never far from the water.

And this time you grow old and I stay young.

And this time I hold your hand as the black dog takes you away.

  
  
  
  


The world changes. Wars are fought and won, towers rise and fall, cities are built and burned, and yet I stay the same.

And every time, somehow, I find you. And every time your face is different, but your eyes are always just as blue.

I guess.

Every time I think that maybe, this life, this body, this mind, you will not love me like you did before, but every time, you put your arms around me and it feels like we’ve never been apart.

And for a little while, I can pretend we'll be together forever.

  
  
  


And lifetime after lifetime, I find you.

And lifetime after lifetime, the black dog takes you away.

  
  
  


And all I want to do is stay with you.

And still death takes everything away from me.

  
  
  


I am weary, you say, and you touch my face with the hands that are always different. Your voice this time is deeper, and your hair is light, and falls over one eye in a perfect motion. And I’m weak, this time, and tired, I and tell you.

I tell you everything.

And you believe every word.

And you said you remember, too.

And I am so tired of being alive.

And I am so tired of watching you die.

  
  
  


“But why would you want a curse like that?”

“Because I found someone worth eternity.”

And the waves crash around your feet.

  
  
  


Wars are fought and won. Towers rise and fall. Cities are built and burned.

And we watch it all together.


	2. song of life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And yet, for all we have discovered, all we have been able to know, there is one thing we have never been able to experience and be able to tell the account of.
> 
> \---
> 
> Blue wakes up, but isn't sure if they really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in 2017. Written in second person because of course it is. It was a weird night, okay.

Humans have spent the entirety of our existence, someone told you once, trying to learn all there is to know. We have discovered the secrets of the plants, the animals, the ocean, the sky. We’ve stood on the moon and looked down and gazed upon the planet, we’ve turned our sights to the tiniest imaginable particles of life, and some even smaller, and figured out their workings. We’ve spoken to creatures unlike ourselves, and studied the brains of those who cannot speak for themselves but feel nonetheless. And yet, for all we have discovered, all we have been able to know, there is one thing we have never been able to experience and be able to tell the account of.

You remember it felt like cold, soaking into your bones and hardening your lungs. Like shivering uncontrollably, your hands and feet gone numb. It felt like fire curling around your arms and chest, burning off the nerve endings. Like the pins-and-needles static enveloping your entire body, like forgetting how to breathe for slightly too long.

It felt like the half-frozen tears falling on your face, like looking up into the face of someone you were trying to remember with eyes that could no longer see. Like the heat of a body pressed close to yours, desperately trying to find you, as though you had somehow been lost.

You remember sitting on hard wooden benches, your hair pinned up and slicked down and sprayed, your body pressed into fabric that draped and flowed over your body in ways that maybe others found pleasing, the words of a man in a pulpit echoing through the room, telling tales of glittering gates of pearl, walls of gleaming jasper, streets of purest gold.

Others speak of a city of colour and light and magic, where the dead dance and sing until the day their memories fade away with the last of their loved ones. Of a beautiful land of rivers and rolling, grassy hills and peace and love and sun. Of waking up in the womb once more, to do it all again. Of the sweet embrace of nothing, of drifting into an eternity of blissful nonexistence.

Your heart stopped four times, they tell you, and you can see the burns on your chest, the ways your arms and legs are wrapped and raised, but you can’t feel much of anything at all, and you drift in and out of the snow-covered forest, not quite settling on a place to stay, not quite sure if you were going to stay anywhere at all.

  
  
  
  


You aren’t sure if you’re disappointed or not that you seem to have chosen to stay in the world where your body was crushed by the car you trusted to protect you. Casts and chairs and crutches and therapy, and your legs work again finally and you are able to cover the scars with long sleeves and pants. And you’re alive, you think. You aren’t in the forest but you are here in this city, and you know it’s real because it’s hot and you can feel your clothes sticking to your skin, but the snow was real too...wasn’t it?

A man pushes a gun in your face and demands the money you need to stay alive, and you wonder what would happen if he pulled the trigger, and for the first time none of the answers scare you.

  
  
  
  


We all dream of leaving our mark on the world as though we are ever of any importance. Most live their lives as the usual sort of person - small heroes in their own right, but never a name to fall off of the lips of thousands. You saw your chance on that dying mountain, but hell wrapped itself around your arms and you say that’s what left these lines in your skin.

If you failed there, is this your second chance?

If you fail here, do you get a third?

  
  
  


The water is cold but you’re standing at the end of the pier regardless, the waves crashing around your feet. And you can hear the songs of gods you aren’t sure exist calling you down, but try as you might you haven’t found them yet.

But there’s solace at the bottom of the ocean, and the water stings your eyes but you sink down anyway, just for those two fleeting minutes of peace. Until your lungs burn and muscles ache, and you have to push toward the surface, and you wonder if you drown here, will you wake up on the shores of the fields at the edge of our forest, with its hills of sky-coloured flowers.

  
  
  
  


You stand at the edge of the cliff and look out into the emptiness beyond, where the ocean swallows the sky. The line in the darkness somewhere between something and nothing. The space between life and death.

If you stepped off now, would you wake up somewhere else?

You close your eyes as slender arms wrap around you, pulling you back against a body that makes you ache in ways you didn’t expect. Their words are soft, their mouth softer, and you try to forget why you were here in the first place, because their body is loving, and it’s easy in their arms.

As they pull you away from the edge, you see shapes in the ocean, hear whispers on the wind, and they tell you they see nothing. And you feel your heart breaking again, and you think that maybe this is the dream. How many times can you die before you stay dead? If you woke up somewhere else, would you still see the shadows?

You think about the horizon as you crawl into the driver’s seat and turn the key, and your home fades into the distance and you chase the sun to oceans you haven’t seen yet and you pray you find your answer.

  
  
  
  


You aren’t sure how you arrived at the concrete wall with its chipped and faded mural, looking out over water too brown to see through and smelling of fish and brine and mud. 

The clouds roll low and gray over the ocean and you can smell the rain on the air as the wind whips your hair around your face. And something in this ocean feels over-warmed and empty, the cries of seabirds hollow in the air. Is this the place where the sea goes to die?

There’s some memory rolling in your mind as you walk the shore and count the corpses of the fish dashed against the rocks, you can feel it slipping through your fingers and blending into the half-seen things in the corners of your eyes.

There’s the body of a seabird mummifying beneath a pier and you envy its peaceful indifference as the rain begins to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow my exploits on Tumblr @catouatche and Twitter @katouatche!


	3. birthplace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What do you hear?_  
>  The wind howling around the front door, the creak of the wood of the walls. Soon, the crack of a fire in the wood-burning stove, warming their hands, their feet, their face. _Thank you._  
>  _Where are you?_  
>  In their house. The windows are black but they see now that it’s because something’s blocking them, not because the sun never rose. It snowed last night.  
> It’s just snow.
> 
> \---
> 
> Red adjusts to life in the real world with the old world's wounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written in 2018. Third person perspective this time, sticking with the theme. This is the chapter with the mild PTSD warning and some mention of guns and hunting.

One. Two. Three. Hold.

Fire.

Pull back. Release. Chamber another.

One. Two. Three -

“Time’s up,” says a voice behind them, startling nearly to the point of pulling the trigger. A hand claps them on the shoulder. “Didn’t mean to startle ya. Thought ya saw me comin’.” Apologetic.

Red lifts their head, turning - all the way - to look the guy in the eye.

“Oh. Shit dude, I’m sorry.”

They’re always sorry. Sometimes they’re sincere. This guy’s colour is a sickly orange-yellow. He’s just an idiot.

Magazine release, open bolt, unload.

“Uh, you’re a damn good shot anyway,” the idiot continues. Every goddamn time. Like compliments would erase the fact that they had shoved their foot so far down their throat it was coming out their ass.

Red just stares at him, meticulously disassembling the rifle and placing it back into its cushioned case. They press the button to return the target, pleased to see that their grouping was tighter than last time.

Someone calls the idiot from a doorway, freeing Red from any more annoyance. Freeing them to shoulder their gun and leave in silence, as they had wanted to all along.

If there had been another idiot in the parking lot, they may have asked how Red could drive, and Red would have ignored them accordingly.

They’ve only put one hole in the bumper, thank you.

  
  
  
  


Red hates the forest now.

The fog is rising from the ground, thick and swirling, condensing on the grass and trees and everything living in the spaces between the trunks of the cedars. Including Red, right now.

It hasn’t snowed yet but it will, they can smell it on the air, feel it in the wind that whips their hair away from their face as they step out into the edge of the clearing. What was once comforting, now is not.

They reach up to the metal rod embedded in the trunk of the tree, missing just once this time before their hand wraps around it, feeling the space between it and their body. It sticks in their mind, and they reach up for the next rod, finding it immediately, swinging their body up. It was easy, once you had your bearings.

The stand is barely more than plywood and two-by-fours nailed to the trunk, but it’s okay, they aren’t heavy. Red wraps an orange bandanna around one leg and slings the gun off of their shoulder, laying it across their lap.

And they wait.

Occasionally they’ll lean their head back and call for the beasts, screaming through the trees with plastic in their mouth. Eventually, in the distance, they hear a reply.

A familiar spark of anticipation wells up inside, and they double-check the gun is loaded and ready, testing the weight in their hands, against their shoulder. Don’t forget to turn on the scope.

They can still hear the whine of the electricity humming in the mechanism.

The elk never shows up.

It starts snowing. Red has to leave.

  
  
  
  
  


Every winter it’s been the same. The days grow shorter and shorter but the sun comes up, without fail, like it has since the dawn of time. But every morning when the alarm goes off they open their eye and wonder if today, finally, the sun will stay below the horizon.

The snow falls all night, burying Red’s house under drifts as tall as they are, piling up against the windows and blocking out the sun, and when Red wakes up the next morning the room is dark.

And they can feel it on their fingertips, the cold emptiness of the pine woods around them, the sound of the wind through the canopy, the smell of blood and infection and rot and smoke, the searing, white-hot lightning striking the back of their skull and reverberating down their spine-

Their fingers clench the blankets and it’s  _ not snow _ they’re feeling, and slowly, slowly, the trees melt into static and the old wooden walls of their house come back into relative focus.  _ What do you feel? _ Says a voice in their mind.  _ What do you smell? _

Cedar and the smoke from a long-dead fire. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and-

_ Look at the walls. _

Red stares at a knot in the wood.  _ Thank you. _

_ Look at the floor. What do you see? _

Sheepskin, soft, black. They tanned it themselves, just like the clothes they wore in the-

_ Look at your hands. _

They’re shaking. There’s a scar on the palm of the right one, from cutting themselves with a skinning knife the first time they shot a deer. Back when they could fire a bow. Their colour is a deep green, like leaves of the oak whose branches stretch out over their front yard.  _ Thank you. _

_ What do you hear? _

The wind howling around the front door, the creak of the wood of the walls. Soon, the crack of a fire in the wood-burning stove, warming their hands, their feet, their face.  _ Thank you. _

_ Where are you? _

In their house. The windows are black but they see now that it’s because something’s blocking them, not because the sun never rose. It snowed last night.

It’s just snow.

It’s just snow.

  
  
  
  


When it’s this cold, the socket aches. Like icy fingers digging into the hole, pressing its nails into their optic nerve, except there isn’t one anymore. At least they don’t think there is. They’d gotten it cleaned up and stitched together when they got back, years ago. Didn’t mean they remembered a damn thing about the mess left beneath the lids.

They press the palm of their hand against the skin until they feel the bone underneath like it will help the phantom pain go away. It doesn’t.

Red hates the forest. They hate the snow even more.

But the snow-covered forest is where they have to go if they want to eat. And so they slide into their thickest coat and warmest boots and swing the gun over their shoulder and the bandanna around their face and take one - two - three breaths before pushing the door open.

_ What colour are the trees? _

The trees are green.  _ Thank you. _

Out here it’s light, a soft kind of overcast creating a shadowless world of white and black and shades of gray, and for a moment Red wonders if they, too, have gone colourblind. The world is silent except for the crunch of footsteps in snow, the fog of the previous morning now existing solely in the breaths pouring from Red’s mouth.

In the distance a crow caws, and it happens again.

_ What do you see? _

I see snow, I see snow and the forest and-

_ What colour are the trees? _

The trees are bla-

Red squeezes their eye shut, then opens it. The trees are green.

_ Thank you. _

Someone had told Red once that they needed to get a dog to help. Red had simply laughed. Dogs were just as bad.

  
  
  
  
  


In the stand, they lean their head back and call to the elk again, and the sound courses uninhibited through the white-capped forest, bouncing off the mountains. Almost immediately, the reply. They call again, changing the sound ever slightly, a low rolling underneath the high-pitched scream. Come to me, it says.

The next reply is closer.

Red has lived in these woods all their life. Born on the floors of the house they woke up in this morning, a gun in their hand since they day they had enough motor control to pull a trigger. They knew the faces of every deer that walked this land, the howl of every wolf pack, the location of every rabbit warren. The forest had been their friend, their provider, their playground, their workplace. Never rich, but always happy.

That is, until they woke up on the ground with a hole in their skull filled with a mountain of anxieties and nightmares of the sun never rising and eyes glowing in the dark.

There’s movement in the treeline at the other end of the clearing, and Red snaps the gun to their shoulder, peering through the trunks. Nothing but white-

And their breath catches in their throat and their ears are ringing and they smell blood again and all they can see is the face of the white stag staring them down through the scope of their gun.

There’s fog billowing from its mouth as it drops it head and calls out, the sound splitting Red’s ears like the screams of the damned.

They know every elk in this forest. There has never been a white one.

_ What colour are the trees- _

The trees are  _ black, they’re fucking black. _

Red can smell the sulfur and smoke and the stag is still just staring at them, unmoving.

_ Count the tines, _ says the voice.

One, two, three, four, five. Two at the brow and one royal and a whale tail at the crown and it drops it head and _ screams _ again.

Red feels like they are going to vomit, their stomach full of acid and the taste of copper on their tongue. Their eye aches, their hands are numb, the air smells like dog and the howling sounds like-

They remember the air on their cheek as they let loose an arrow that buries itself in the chest of the stag, the way it just looks down at them and laughs.

_ You cannot kill a god _ , it says.

_ What colour are the trees now, Red? _

The trees are black. “And that’s not my name,” Red hears themself say, and fires.

  
  
  
  
  


The white stag dies.

_ You cannot kill a god. _

_ Are you so sure? _

The smell of blood sticks in Red’s nose even after they’ve showered and redressed and stoked the fire in their living room once more. They lay on the deerskin rug, pressing the heel of their palm into the space where an eye once was. Outside, the crows are feasting upon the stag’s entrails, and for once, the sound of their cries didn’t set Red’s mind to flipping.

Some part of them knows that it’s not the same stag, but separating the head from the body feels like retribution. Whatever happened - however it happened - in that black forest, they have now, in some small way, gained payment for their time lost.

They close their eye and sleep, and it’s almost restful.

They still hate the forest. They still hate the snow even more.

The cries of the crows still makes them sick to their stomach. The howl of wolves in the mountains still makes them ache inside.

But now that the white stag’s head is hanging on the wall, the trees have always, always stayed green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow my exploits on Tumblr @catouatche and Twitter @katouatche!


End file.
